The performance of analyses of large data sets (e.g., what is commonly referred to as “big data”) is becoming increasingly commonplace in such areas as simulations, process monitoring, decision making, behavioral modeling and making predictions. Such analysis are often performed by grids of varying quantities of available node devices, while the data sets are often stored within a separate set of storage devices. This begets the challenge of efficiently encrypting and storing such large data sets within storage devices for future use, and efficiently retrieving and decrypting such large data sets from storage devices for use by a grid of node devices. Among such challenges in the storage of such large data sets may be various constraints on the manner in which such large data sets are provided to storage devices.